


faultlines

by chrysalizzm, City_of_Starlight, HawkSirius, izziel_galaxy, Kinaku_Mirai (Chasing_Inspiration), lunarblazes, Marianne_Dashwood, prettyflyforacacti, Psychopedia, Spaceecactus, subwaywalls



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Platonic Relationships, Queerplatonic Relationships, Realistic Minecraft Mechanics, Recovery, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Somewhat, They/Them Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29923362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalizzm/pseuds/chrysalizzm, https://archiveofourown.org/users/City_of_Starlight/pseuds/City_of_Starlight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawkSirius/pseuds/HawkSirius, https://archiveofourown.org/users/izziel_galaxy/pseuds/izziel_galaxy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chasing_Inspiration/pseuds/Kinaku_Mirai, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarblazes/pseuds/lunarblazes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood, https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyflyforacacti/pseuds/prettyflyforacacti, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychopedia/pseuds/Psychopedia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaceecactus/pseuds/Spaceecactus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaywalls/pseuds/subwaywalls
Summary: Dream’s eyes open and immediately everything is utterly, fundamentally wrong.“Where the hell am I,” he rasps to himself, his heart beating so fast it’s nearly a hum. “Where thehellam I.”The lava hums back.-In which a gentle hope awakens in a sweltering hearth of a broken world, a cage of heat and hate and obsidian walls, while an empty rage opens its eyes in what could have been but wasn't, in a soft eden he thought he'd burnt down himself.OrA young god wakes up in the ruins of a world that isn't his own but might have been, while Wilbur Soot phases through a wall, waking up dead (he's pretty sure he wasn't, yesterday).An AU of chrysalizzm’s Young God series.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 140
Kudos: 229





	1. and I find you all unwoven

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you're human tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408277) by [chrysalizzm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalizzm/pseuds/chrysalizzm). 



> Hello, and welcome to what is commonly referred to as… the hellscape! We hope you enjoy your stay. This has been a project more ambitious than any of us have ever take on and the first time a lot of us have co-written with anyone, let alone a group!  
> If you haven’t read the fic linked above, please, please do as it is so important to understanding this! (It's also an amazing read) This fic is itself a fic of the young god series, wherein Dream is a minor god and is able to ‘settle’ people’s hurts by taking them into himself - which he uses to prevent the canonical tragedy at the Manburg Festival, meaning that the ‘canon’ of that universe is very different to the one we know.  
> This has been an incredible project for all of us to be a part of, and very much like the SMP itself - a group of people from all over the world working together to tell a story about something that we love. Maybe thats a bit sappy, but it’s the truth. All of the authors/editors/betas and their socials are linked at the end notes, and we already have some incredible art to go with this fic which is just!!! Amazing!!  
> As a lot of this has already been written, we will be updating about three times a week so subscribe if you wanna be notified when a new chapter goes up, and check out all of the amazing people involved using the links in the end notes!  
> Now, go and enjoy the fic!

Dream’s eyes open, and immediately everything is utterly, fundamentally _wrong._

It’s not just the violet-speckled black of obsidian caging him on three sides or the crooning heat of molten lava cascading down, honey-slow, opposite him that makes him scramble back. It’s not the lightness of his hair shorn shorter than he likes, nor the scrape of an unfamiliarly-shaped mask against unfamiliarly-angled scars over his mouth and nose and eyes.

What makes Dream cry out and scramble into a corner, cramming himself into the meager space between writing desk and wall, is the crest and descent and seafoam shatter of _you you you did this to us i am broken i am ruined i have lost lost lost and everything is laid at his feet your feet the earth at your hands and you tore us asunder our voidsick country and visionless people and you you all of this was you hate hate hate_.

“Where the hell am I,” he rasps to himself, to his heart beating so fast it’s nearly a hum. “Where the _hell_ am I.”

The lava hums back.

There is no answer, not one that can be translated by anyone who isn’t a minor god. Even then, it’s like walking into a country and not speaking the language; bitter hate and burning resentment so far flung from the world he’s used to that it twists in his gut, a knife buried deep. The world echoes, it hurts and bleeds and cries its desolation around him, and he cannot block it out even if he wanted to. Because he recognises the call, he recognises the broken hearts and scarred souls that are weeping their hurts to him, letting it pour out of them like he can’t hear them, like he has never been able to hear them.

The thing is―

Dream’s brain has always worked faster than his body, blazing, brilliant, his mind a fire charge too hot to handle. As soon as he can gather his bearings he thumbs through the jumbled, incoherent scrawlings of the mauled lion that frequented this cage before him, and what sentiments Dream can make out through the frantic slashes of ink are so violently inconceivable to him that he has to set down the confessions ― because that’s what they are ― in between the lectern and the wall. Dream puts his head to his knees as his body shakes.

The most dangerous thing is a trapped animal, and that is what this must have been, this cell, this prison that resonates the hurts of this world, a tuning fork of pain and hurt and loss directly into his mind.

_(―if you do not want me you do not get my eden―)_

The words of this… this other him echo in his ears. He doesn’t want to think about it, cannot bear to let the words cross his mind, but the thoughts that tumble onto the page in familiar jagged handwriting connect the dots in the same hop skip and jump that lets him win manhunts. He knows that if he were to go through it it would call to the parts of himself that burn with a dark flame, whispering, _here is my pride, here is my hubris, here is my loyalty twisted and turned on itself my love broke me I broke myself into sharp shattered pieces so when they try to steal more of me it will hurt them more_.

Here is a Dream whose words make it clear he never heard the same melody of aches and pains and bruises and skinned knees and final blows that _he_ does, and he can barely conceive the thought that there is a world where he has never taken a hurt unto himself. It’s like taking his eyes or his hands or his ability to just _breathe_ , like removing his soul and expecting him to survive. Settling is his sixth sense, another way of reaching out to the world and having it whisper back. It lets him talk to the soul of his server, the intangible energy and life that he breathed through the earth and the oceans that grew into something outside of himself but connected and blessed nonetheless.

The fabric of his own world is carefully woven, dropped stitches picked up and reincorporated with care and attention, letting the pattern weave itself and each part connect to the other. Here, the loom itself is broken, the tapestry jagged and torn, its fraying edges open to the world.

Dream leans his head against the obsidian, its uneven grooves some comfort even as the heat it reflects back off of the magma feels like it’s searing him alive; it’s better than the faint cries he can sense from beyond the chunks upon chunks of obsidian and blackstone and redstone, far up into the night sky, axe on a whetstone, a dissonant song sung in nothing but flats and minors.

He can fix that, right? Dream tries to reach out, breaths shallow and sharp, his heartbeat no longer a hum but a frantic buzz, insect wings in his chest and―

_hate hate hate how could you have done this to us to me to me to me a thousand souls with a thousand broken hearts scream into the night into the universe that should have protected them nurtured them but instead let them bleed themselves dry they are the people who once were happy the people who are and the people who could have been crying alongside the grass and the bees and the oceans who were poisoned by a heart that could not give what was taken it’s a flint at my neck it’s a compass in the dirt and a crater into the void down wounded wounded into the earth like a crucifix and sacrifice everything everything everything what do we earn but broken pieces look at us look at us look at us your beloved your home your everything if this was wilbur’s if this was your world_

_look look look at what you have done to us_

His heart splinters, shatters, open to the air and elements and endless weeping souls; inflorescent. Dream _screams_.

* * *

Wilbur doesn’t so much awaken as he _becomes._ It is one thing to be corporeal and wedged comfortably between two of your brothers with the third at your feet and your father’s wing slung over all of you like a comforter as you drift into sleep, and another entirely to sink into a wall of spruce wood without resistance save a vague itch that disappears when he stumbles out onto the other side.

He yelps out of reflex; the surroundings are unfamiliar, an uncomfortable overlay from his last remembered location and the house he’s currently staggered into. The windows are shut firmly, but the snow howls outside with a hunger that makes him shiver involuntarily. The fireplace snaps with a vengeance, and Wilbur nervously looks at himself. There is a vibrant, eye-watering blue soaking his front, an eyesore against the desaturated goldenrod of his jumper, staining the palms of his hands, garish against his strangely grey skin.

“What the fuck,” he demands to the air, and his voice rings, clings to the air like a half-remembered melody, an echo into the empty sitting room in the compact spruce-and-stone house that Wilbur doesn’t know or doesn’t remember, like a ― like a haunt.

“Ghostbur?” comes a voice thick with sleep from up the stairs, and Wilbur startles, instinctively turns like a flower to sunlight when he hears the familiar cadence of his father’s voice, despite the strange name, despite the wistfulness that hangs onto Phil’s voice as he calls, blearily, “Everything okay? When did you come?”

“I don’t know,” Wilbur says honestly, bunching up the vivid blue of his shirt front in his trembling hands. “I don’t know, Phil.”

“You’ve, ah,” Phil is coming down the stairs now, footsteps light on the staircase, still speaking though the yawn that interrupts him, “Have you got one of your books? Might remind you.”

Wilbur isn’t looking to Phil anymore, his hands have come away bloody blue, and _holy shit, holy **fuck**_ , he can see the _floor_ through his stained palms, scratchy spruce of an unfamiliar house, and there is a ragged gash in his jumper from where the blue spills and _what the fuck, what the fuck_ ―

“Hey, kiddo.” Phil’s voice cuts through the wave of panic, and Wilbur blinks as the light of a lantern flicks on, only to flinch as the warm light throws his newfound transparency into harsh reality. “What’s wrong?”

“What _happened_?” Wilbur says, flinching at the resonating tone in his voice, a note that lilts and shakes and barely sounds like him at all, still staring in horror down at his hands, at his feet which don’t quite touch the ground. “Phil, what happened to me?”

“I thought,” Phil says, voice no longer sleepy. Instead, there is a sharpness to it, a tone that sends shivers down Wilbur’s ( _non-existent_?) spine. “I thought you remembered that. You told me you remembered what happened to you.”

“I just woke up here,” Wilbur says, fighting to keep his voice level, forcing it downwards into his usual register, no matter the echoes behind it, “I went to sleep with you and Techno and Tommy and now I’m here, and I don’t understand―”

He lifts his head, looking for reassurance, for help, for his _dad_ , and all his words die in his throat. Horror claws its way up, dread pooling in his stomach, damnation and condemnation resonating all at once. Phil is looking at him in concern, but his eyes are tired, and there is an exhaustion present that Wilbur doesn’t remember being there just a few hours ago.

But that isn’t what sends Wilbur stumbling backwards, his eyes wide and horrified, yelping as part of his arm sinks into the chest behind him. It’s a strange feeling he immediately knows he doesn't want to replicate, like moving through slime, or reminiscent of the rare occasions he’s swam in lava, making his entire left side numb. It calls to him, a song to drift and stay drifting, to wash up on the beaches of his friends and family with no care, no concern, and he thinks, _no, now is not the time_.

No, Phil is looking at him like _he_ is the concern, as if Phil wasn’t ― as if his wings weren’t fracturing on his back, as if one wing wasn’t entirely charcoal black, stretched and healing skin instead of thick, iridescent feathers, as if the other wasn’t scattered with splintering holes, tilting his entire body weight to the side. With horror, Wilbur realises exactly why Phil’s footsteps were light when he came down the stairs.

“Mate, Wi― Ghostbur, calm down, alright? Do you have some of your, uh, blue on you?” Phil asks, frowning, his outstretched hand curling into a fist and pulling away, seemingly remembering that he cannot touch Wilbur like this. Wilbur doesn’t respond, still trying to process, to understand exactly what happened to his fathers wings (his beautiful wings, clipped and broken and ruined beyond repair and Phil doesn’t even seem to care, and he’ll never get to run his fingers through those feathers again, what happened, _what happened?_ ), even as Phil tries again, concern evident as Wilbur struggles for words.

“Ghostbur―” “Don’t!” Wilbur says, panicked and reedy, tone like a church bell, and it hurts his ears, it hurts his soul, _it hurts_ , “Why are you calling me that? Where am I? What happened to your _wings?”_

A cry splits the air, pulls at the space between atoms in its intensity, a ringing across reality, and Wilbur throws his hands over his ears even though he thinks he could hear that sound in his very soul and it is grief and it is loss and it is pure and utter _anguish_.

But worst of all, it is familiar, because it is―

 _hurting shattering splintering breaking apart all over again the sky is cracked and falling and someone must hold it someone must take up the mantle carry the sky carry the hurt carry the weight carry the pain all of it mine mine mine and not mine all of it mine my fault my fault my fault bleeding and aching and scarred all my fault not me not me but mine to fix mine to heal mine to save_ ―

Well. Wilbur would know that self-sacrificial idiot anywhere; even in a nightmare, even though his father is bound to the earth and he isn’t bound to anything at all. He needs to find said self-sacrificial idiot because the pain isn’t dying, isn’t stopping, and Wilbur is absolutely not the right person for this job.

Phil opens his mouth to protest, to say that the storm outside will be too much, to tell him that he can explain, but Wilbur is already gone, the golden thread of heartache leading him forward.

* * *

Time swims laps in the prison; it loops around in a haze of raw potatoes and lukewarm water and the taste of copper in his mouth as he bites down on his lip again, trying to stem the tide inside him, to calm the storm roiling in his blood. It burns, but then again, everything here does. The black of the obsidian and the molten heat of the lava is a lethal combination, even if he wasn’t fighting against his own power for coherence. He has clawed as much pain as he can reach into himself, only to find out at the first scoop that he is a wooden bowl in a raging ocean, already cracked and breaking. He is a lonely boat caught in a storm of pain and resentment, and he has no anchor.

Dream remembers putting sponges in the Nether to dry them out, how if he left them long enough, all of the water inside would evaporate and they would become miniscule husks of what they once were. How no matter the amount of water or sponges he brought to the nether with him, he wasn’t able to tell the difference, the nether too hot and the water too sparse. He wonders, in a detached sort of way, how long it will be until the well inside of him will dry up. It's odd to think of his demise as inevitable, but in this world, whether it be because of the world itself or the hurts endured on it, he has as much control over his settling as rain does where it falls.

Most of the time, he doesn’t bother to struggle, letting the ocean of hurt and pain pull him under, letting it fill his mouth and nose until he chokes on it. But the ocean is never ending, and the tides sweep him away again.

Until. Until.

* * *

Puffy hasn’t visited the prison. If she’s being honest with herself she’d really rather not ― the walls looming, the constant existential dread. There’s a bitter taste at the back of her throat that could be misconstrued as guilt or failure as she waits before the cell with Sam, who’s steely and silent beside her. She makes it a rule of habit not to regret things ― you’ve made your bed, now sleep in it ― but watching the lava part before her sluggishly, she comes damn close.

“Holler when you’re done,” Sam tells her, coldly impassive, and Puffy has to physically restrain herself from shaking him by the shoulders _(didn’t you love him too, once?)_. She steps onto the moving platform steadily, keeps her chin tilted high, a buffer against the incoming tide that she knows Dream’s words will be: incisive, poisonous, deliberate.

She’s completely unprepared for what she gets.

The thing is ― Puffy can read Dream like an open book. It’s always been the one skill she flaunts that no one else has, not even the two he swore to high hell were his best friends. She raised this street kid, she kept him safe and loved him, and she knows the reason why - of all the people this SMP has swallowed, not a single hair on her head was harmed. So when she ducks through the lava and comes face to face with someone curled up against the corner of the cell, very deliberately still―

Well.

She doesn’t know how she knows, to be honest. It might be the way his hair is set ― loose all the way where her own duckling insisted on keeping it out of his face at all times ― or it might be the set of his lips, his mask ridden up to show his mouth where her own duckling shielded his face from everything: sorrow, rage, anguish. Love.

“Who are you?” Puffy asks the stranger wearing her son’s face.

The boy stirs, looking up at her with a glint of green. “Captain? Who… Puffy. Puffy?” and Puffy knows, immediately, that this is not the Dream she raised. He knows her as a companion, not a mother; he recognises her as something outside of himself, beyond his reach, beyond love or doubt.

“Oh my God,” she says faintly, the heat searing the white of her mane against her back. “Oh my God, you can’t be in here.”

“Puffy,” the Dream who is not her son says again, and there is blood on his lips, on the edges of his mask, and he climbs to his feet with all the grace of a baby animal, fingers that have been scraped raw on obsidian walls bracing him as he stumbles, trips, and falls towards her. “Puffy, let me, let me _help_ ―”

She is frozen, only barely able to reach out an arm in time to steady him, uneasiness and concern and panic beginning to rise in her chest. This isn’t her Dream, this isn’t her duckling, but he is a _child_ , a child clearly hurting, a child offering to help _her_ , not the other way around, and what can she do but open her arms wide and―

_shh shh shh calm settle gentle a drop in the ocean but it is something it can be something does she hurt does she fear where are the scars where are the wounds left by her son the hurts from family always cut the deepest and yes yes yes she hurts yes she grieves yes she despairs in her ability to make a difference to keep her oath she regrets with every beat of her heart that she did not could not do more she stood in front of a man who was no longer her son and knew she had failed where did you go wrong were you gone when he needed you the most shh shh calm calm calm calm you didn’t fail you never did you did your best always your best you loved him and he chose to fall let me take let me soothe let me help let me fill in the cracks with blood and gold you are safe safe safe now shh_

“Dream,” she gasps, the tide rolling away, her panic and her worry abating, and the sickening guilt that has plagued her for days has simply… vanished, between one breath and the next. Replacing it are whispers, whispers over whispers hanging in the air and twirling around her ears, her mind, her soul, Dream’s voice but not, bubbling over into existence as he… helps? Soothes? “Dream, what have you done?”

“Helped,” Dream says simply, his voice rasping like he just swallowed fire. Then he crumples to the floor like a marionette with his strings cut.

“Duckling, shit, duckling, darling, _Dream.”_ Puffy only just manages to stop his head from hitting the crying obsidian floor, watching in horror as his eyes roll back, letting out a breath like a loose balloon, words falling out of his mouth. Except his mouth is pressed shut and his eyes are barely open where is coming from, what _is_ it?

_soothe soothe soothe settle and calm and gentle and safe and smooth down the sharp edges bandage the wound I cannot unburn the bridges but I will put out the fires with my blood sweat and tears until I run dry make it mine all mine mine mine they don’t know me but I know them sinew and soul and heart and home soothe settle settle settle_

Pushing back the limp strands of Dream’s hair, sweat soaked and dulled in colour, Puffy whispers, “What the _fuck_ is going on?”

* * *

Wilbur isn’t sure how long it’s been; he knows it hurt, to be in the snow, remembers Phil shouting after him, remembers being holed up in a small cave as he waited for the rain to abate. He remembers looking around and seeing a world so similar to his own, yet at the same time so distorted, like looking through a twisted funhouse mirror.

He remembers that wherever he goes, he can hear the sigh in the air, the murmur that curves through his insubstantial being, and he cannot help but follow it. Dream is somewhere out there, more than that, _his_ Dream is out there, and he needs to find him.

It’s a siren song, a golden thread, but trying to grasp it with his consciousness only leads him around in circles, forever tracking the threads of misery in the air. He was the musician, the playwright, the poet but Dream’s settling is like an orchestra through the fabric of the universe, and he follows. He closes his eyes and lets the symphony reaching into his soul lead him forward.

He doesn’t know exactly how it happens, but he knows that he closed his eyes, felt only air under his feet, felt for the part of his soul that was detached and drifting. It’s harder to ground himself when he has no skin for his fingers to pinch, and he doesn’t like giving into dissociation, but for Dream, for the man _(and part of him screams that Dream is little more than a boy)_ that saved him…

He lets the ghostly impulse to drift and smile and let his memories slide vapid through his fingers take over for a bit.

(It doesn't deny half of him, like it did to the shade of himself that used to inhabit this world, because his hurts are interwoven with the happy memories, and if he follows a happy memory long enough he'll remember the bittersweetness that made it such a beloved moment, and it won't be sour enough to make him forget, because he knows it turns out better.)

He blinks, and blackstone walls rise above him, eclipsing the bright light of the now-day and the whisper is now a sigh is now a murmur is almost a cry, and he _knows_ where Dream is.

The entrance to this place is about as grim as the outside, and he is relieved to find that his palm, stained as it is with blue, is able to press the button by the portal. His mind slips away again, sand through his fingertips because if this got him here then perhaps this is what they expect.

“Wil― Ghostbur?”

He really wishes people would stop calling him that, but he doesn’t argue.

“Can I see Dream?” he lets the distant part of him ask, wincing as his voice echoes all over again, and nearly missing the instructions that will allow him entrance to this… this _prison_.

“Give me a second, you’re not the only one visiting today,” the warden says, and he thinks it’s Sam but he sounds so serious, so different from who Wilbur knew, even if the two of them had never been particularly close.

He nods and lets himself be taken through to a main entrance where the sounds of raised voices catches his attention.

“I’m telling you, something was different, something was wrong―”

“Puffy, I can’t, alright? We can talk about this later, but right now, I can’t.”

Wilbur almost misses Puffy with the way she storms out and past him, looking like she is ready to commit a murder, but he doesn’t miss the raised eyebrows and the surprise on her face when she recognises him.

Sam ― the Warden, has a lot of questions, but as jaded as they all are, Wilbur is already made of broken glass turned blue, so if he sands down his edges and doesn't listen to what they say before he responds, it's fine. It’s good enough to scrape by, at least, and enough to feel his heart curdle in his chest as he passes through checkpoint after checkpoint. Until — a lava pit, an obsidian box, a figure too exhausted to cry, potatoes left rotting in the water, skin cracked dry and burnt pink in some places from how close he is to the lava. Wilbur finds his friend in a monster's shadow, and knows immediately that this can't continue.

He bends, trying to take his friend into his arms, tries to hold, to comfort, but he _can’t_.

They can’t touch. That’s not how this newfound transparency works. Wilbur’s hands too free of another man’s lifelong agonies, but items are free game ― he could press the button outside, after all ― so Wilbur slides up the beaten mask to smooth his thumb over Dream’s drying, flaking cheek as best he can, tries to coax him back to some form of consciousness as he remembers Sapnap and George doing the few times Dream stirred during that fucking Hell Week. It’s not good ― for all that he’s an excellent big brother he doesn’t have the benefit of a childhood with Dream to draw from ― but it’s not bad, either, and Wilbur gets two vague, filmy green eyes dull with exhaustion for his troubles.

“There,” he says, relief making his voice shake, dull recognition sparking in Dream’s eyes. “There you are. It’s alright, Dream, it’s okay, it’s okay,”

“Wil…?” Dream’s voice is breathless, pain having punched all of his oxygen out of him.

“Yeah,” Wilbur says, “Yeah, it’s me. Properly me, even though I, uh, don’t remember becoming a ghost.”

Dream’s eyes widen slightly, and his hand tilts up, trying to catch the edge of Wilbur’s face, fingers fading though like mist, but his breath catches, snags, and―

 _mine mine mine yes one of mine this one has burn marks and his heart is ash covered and soot stains his soul but he is mine mine mine the one i saved i am lost but i know your hurts know how to help yes yes soothe the fear soothe the worry settle soothe calm_ ―

“Dream,” Wilbur chokes out, “I’m fine, stop, stop, please,”

“There’s so much,” Dream says, tears beading at his eyes, running down and through Wilbur’s attempts to brush them away. The room’s too cramped to echo, but Wilbur can hear Dream’s voice ring anyway, thin as paper, wavering like the insubstantial shimmer of heat off of obsidian walls, as he whispers, painfully, horribly honest, “Wilbur, it _hurts_.”

It is this admission that nearly breaks Wilbur; this is the Dream who decided that two weeks after he woke up would be a great day for server-wide Capture the Flag, this is the Dream who thought that a week in a coma that would have killed a mortal wasn’t too long, who tried to settle Wilbur the moment he woke up _just in case_ there was something he had missed.

Dream is drowning in the hurts he took from this world's residents, and Wilbur, for good or ill, is… selfish, at heart, just for a moment. He wishes Dream would give them back because this isn't theirs, Dream isn't theirs, he is this Wilbur's and this Wilbur is his. But he sees the pain crystal clear in Dream's eyes and so he takes a breath. He grasps Dream's hands, or tries to, fingers phasing through Dream's countless times until Dream twitches and curls them loosely around his.

Wilbur says, pleads, begs, "You’re not alone. Let me help you. Let me carry some of it, please, Dream." Let me skim the top of your cracking cup, let me stem the flow, shoulder the burden with you. I can feel your soul crying _let me help_.

Dream sighs, a shattered sound, and Wilbur knows that this fight isn’t over, he hasn’t won it. Not right now.

“I’m here, Dream,” Wilbur says, even though he isn’t sure where _here_ is. Unable to do anything as his friend curls up into his side, the grip on his hand faltering and falling, fading through his torso, Wilbur murmurs, “It’s going to be okay. I’m here.”


	2. Mama, we all go to hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit!!! the response to our fic so far has been so overwhelming, y'all are so kind!!! We love each and every one of you who has read/kudos'd/commented - it has been absolutely incredible, it really has!! So from each and everyone one of us, thank you <3
> 
> Because one of the comments asked - the majority of the fic has been written, so our update schedule will be monday/wednesday/saturday - so look forward to your thrice weekly dose of angst!
> 
> And finally - [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00D5k9ZxJnyEIC2MXkJKT7?si=t0o3yNxtSM-CJNeCA_GykQ/) is a spotify playlist for the fic, which, I hope you will all enjoy :)
> 
> As always, please check out our socials (those of us that have them!) and comment/kudos if you want! We feed on your comments :D

“Ghostbur, this is the last time I’m going to ask,” Sam says lowly. The obsidian swallows the echo of his words, but they feel amplified, ringing though whatever system he has set up to project his voice though lava and blackstone. “You need to go.”

“Nope,” Wilbur replies, with all the bastard energy he can muster. He grew up with three brothers, he knows how to be stubborn when it counts, and considering he is in a world that is no longer his own, he’s pretty sure this counts.

“Wilbur,” Dream says, stubborn idiot that _he_ is, even as he wheezes though the pain and his hands are clenched so tight his fingernails bite into his palms. “I’ll be alright. He won’t let you back in if you don’t go _now_.”

“I’m not leaving you here!” Wilbur snaps. Dream doesn’t recoil, but it’s a near thing, and Wilbur turns away from him, taking a deep breath. It’s not Dream he’s angry at, after all. If anything, that’s who he’s angry _for_ , his friend tossed aside in the corner of an inescapable hell for crimes he didn’t commit. He sets his jaw and tells the slow, sinking lava opposite him, tells the Warden he knows stands with his arms crossed across the chasm, “I’m not going. That’s that.”

“If you’re going to be uncooperative, I will have to take drastic measures.”

“What, like kill me?” Wilbur scoffs, a faint and familiar cruelty needling him all of a sudden. “Funnily enough, I think someone’s beat you to it, _Warden.”_

Dream chokes down a whine, squeezing his eyes shut and shrinking further into the wall. Wilbur flinches, muttering a quiet “Sorry” to the figure he is knelt beside. Even with hands that shimmer in the heat of the magma, he can feel the fever burn of Dream’s skin.

“Ghostbur―”

“ _Wilbur!”_ he snarls, sick of hearing a name that only reminds him of how useless he is in this form, of how he can’t even give his friend the comfort of an embrace. “I’m Wilbur, alright, not Ghostbur or whatever, and I’m not leaving Dream in this shithole a second longer!”

Dream wheezes, settling hissing from him; quiet placations run from his mouth like a new spring stream _I'm sorry sorry sorry you're hurting aching empty but it's mine I don't know why you cry but the hurt wound damage is mine mine mine I don't know how I hurt you but it's mine mine mine mine._

The hopelessness that had welled under Wilbur’s skin like blood under a bruise seeps right back out, leached away by a young god only getting sicker. He yells up at Sam, wherever the hell he’s watching from, with harsh, ill-gotten vigor: “He’s _sick!_ And he’s only going to get worse, I’ve seen it before, Sam!”

“I can’t let him out,” Sam says, and something bitter touches his voice, a quiet note Wilbur nearly recognises, before Sam reins himself in with a firmer, “He’s done too much. I can’t.”

“It _wasn’t him,”_ Wilbur seethes, close to pulling out his hair in frustration. Dream falters at his side, and he can’t repeat those wounded, wordless days at the White House again, he _can’t_. “This isn’t your Dream!”

“Gh― Wilbur, you aren’t making any sense,” Sam says, audibly losing his patience, only serving to cement his unfamiliarity in Wilbur’s head. Their Sam was never a paragon of composure, but he always tried not to lose his temper and always apologised when he did. There’s a scuff of hooves on blackstone as Sam cuts away from the mic for a moment. He returns and sighs into it, saying placatingly, “Come out of the cell, and we can talk, okay? You need to―”

He’s cut off by the sound of something solid hitting the sound system, a muffled shout. Wilbur tenses, edging over so that he’s bodily shielding Dream in a heap on the ground (as though he could make any difference, bodiless echo that he is), but instead of the lava parting and the Warden looming at the opposite end, a different, higher voice rings out over the comms, and it takes a moment for Wilbur to place it.

“What do you mean, it isn’t our Dream?” Puffy asks, urgency threading through her voice.

Next to him, Dream shudders, and Wilbur drops a hand to his forehead without thinking. Dream shudders again, then subsides with a small sigh of relief at the cool touch. Wilbur mutters a silent thank-you to whatever elder is watching over them; that’s at least one thing his ghostly form has over flesh and blood.

“Let him out of here and I’ll tell you,” Wilbur says.

* * *

Puffy finds them a rickety cot three layers away from the heart of the prison, one that isn’t involved in the spawn trap, and Wilbur patters after her anxiously as she heaves Dream’s lifeless body over her shoulder with nary a sweat and deposits him into it. She hesitates, then tentatively reaches out to smooth Dream’s curls back tenderly from his mask. Wilbur sucks in a sharp breath when her cloven hoof makes contact with his face, but nothing happens. For a moment, they both stand there, staring down at the minor god that Wilbur can’t even say with one hundred percent certainty isn’t dying before his eyes.

Finally, Puffy straightens up with a sigh, turns to Wilbur, a hoof planted on her hip. “So?” she asks, prompting, and Wilbur winces at the prospect of having to explain this entire nightmare to a woman (not the girl he knew for a day or two before being swept away into a hellish version of their reality) that clearly sees Dream as someone of significance to her, enough that she’s willing to break several rules for him.

“...How do you know your Dream?” Wilbur asks, hedging the point. It’s not a complete swerve ― he does want to know how this Puffy views her Dream before giving her any information for free ― but judging by Puffy’s raised eyebrow, she’s not impressed.

Still, to her credit, she shrugs and responds, “He’s my son.”

Wilbur actually reels, nearly phasing through the wall when he tries to put out his arm to break his sway. “You’re― your _son?”_ he repeats dumbly, mostly out of surprise than anything else. It figures that some things would be different from their original world ― what Wilbur recalls fleetingly now of his other self’s father from yesterday gives him a vague impression of a man with far more exhaustion and age lining his face than his own father ― but in their world, Puffy’s just under a year older than Dream. “What kind of alternate reality is this?” he demands to no one in particular, but Puffy’s gaze sharpens like the edge of a blade.

“Alternate reality,” she repeats, searching, and Wilbur feels his ears flush under her scrutiny. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Ghostbur.” She raises an eyebrow. “Or should I call you Wilbur?”

“Wilbur, please.” He ducks his head and shuffles his feet. “I’ll try. But it’s a long story.”

And. And here’s the thing. Wilbur has always been a poet, a bard, a storyteller. So he tells them their story, one with high stakes and soaring heights and a hero whose heart is ninety percent of his body weight, a heart entirely too human to be surrounded by a divine form. He watches her face change in recognition as he describes the revolution, the birth of a nation and the high price of freedom. Her expressions change though, as he describes the weeks that slip through his memory in a haze of rage and pain. Of the moment the storm cleared, a breath of fresh air after months of drowning. Of a world saved, of a destiny changed. Of a life debt not asked for but freely given and an unbreakable bond formed.

Of how their saviour, their young god, lay still and lifeless at their feet, how he bore the pain of the world on his shoulders, and he hurts and he hurts and his friends cannot take the pain because...because...

Because it is not theirs to take. They cannot draw it out, not like he did.

Instead, they love him. They love him, and that's enough.

When he wakes, it’s a miracle, he’s alive and safe, and each and every one of them weeps with joy.

They got one month, Wilbur tells Puffy. Just a month, enough for Dream to get back on his feet, enough for him to get some colour back into his face. Not enough to heal, not really.

“Then,” he says, the weight of the story lifted from his chest, the weight of the world settling heavy on his shoulders instead. “Then we woke up. I was halfway in a wall and Dream… Well, Dream was here.”

“What happens now?” Sam asks, from the doorway. Wilbur hadn’t even known he had been listening from his guardpost. “Because, no offence Gh― Wilbur, but Dream knows how to lie. This could be just another trick.”

“It’s not!” Wilbur stresses, but Sam appears unmoved.

“Wilbur, our… our Dream did terrible things,” Sam says. “Why do you think he was in here in the first place? Even if I was going to let him just walk out, even if he isn’t _our_ Dream, I can’t guarantee that people wouldn’t just attack him on sight, or even just outright kill him.” Sam says. “I don’t know if this Dream is on his last life, but ours is, and just one person could―"

“Minor gods can’t die,” Wilbur says, almost in reassurance to himself as he looks down at a god who seems far, far too vulnerable to be divine. “Or they shouldn’t be able to be killed easily. But with Dream like this, I don’t…” He steels himself, even as his voice wavers in that strange, echoing tone. “I don’t know.”

"But where would you take him?" Sam asks.

"The White House?" Wilbur suggests, and though he doesn’t particularly relish the idea of history repeating itself, L’Manburg is _home_ , and it’s the closest thing to neutral ground that he can think of. He can only hope that in this horrible alternate world, Schlatt isn’t still president, or worse, possessed.

His hopes are dashed as Puffy's face pales, a flicker in her eyes that speaks to a history he doesn't know, a history averted.

"Wilbur, it's..." Puffy swallows. "Wilbur, L'Manburg is -"

Dream, as if on cue, stirs under the thin blanket on a bed that Wilbur hopes was never intended for use, and whispers, “Everything hurts, Wil,” and Wilbur understands that he’s not talking about himself ― holy _fuck_ , Dream’s talking about the _server_.

Wilbur can't think about it, can’t think about how pale Puffy looks, can't think about a quashed desire for self-immolation of everything he ever loved, can't think about how the only redemption he had thought he could find was at the end of a sword, can't think about who may or may not be in the White House right now, and he tries to banish the image of children's hands cut on the sharp edges of a world they were not ready for. He can't think about it, because as much as it pulls him into a pit, Dream needs him here.

(Puffy and Sam watch as for a moment, Wilbur fizzles like static on a balloon, blue and yellow dripping into each other like wet paint, before his figure reforms and he pulls himself together.)

He kneels by Dream’s side, watching as Dream’s eyes slowly open and take in the obsidian walls, the iron doors, and the two people and a ghost watching over him. Dream already looks exhausted, beaten down, and Wilbur wishes more than ever that he could take Dream’s hand in his as his eyes blink, slow and unfocused, taking far too long to spark in recognition.

“‘Hurts,” Dream says, rasping his words as if each is another boulder on his shoulders. “Wil, it _hurts_.”

“I know,” Wilbur says, and even if he cannot hold his friend’s hand, he carefully places his translucent ones over Dream’s open palm. “I know. We’re going to get you out of here, okay?”

At this point, he isn’t sure whether he’s talking about this horrible funhouse mirror of a world, or the deathtrap that is the prison itself.

“We…?” Dream asks, his gaze sluggishly moving from Wilbur’s face, to the other two behind him. “Puffy and… Sam?”

His gaze sharpens, and Wilbur doesn’t even get a chance to say anything, he can only try and block Dream’s movements because he recognises that look, that stubborn determination that saved him and nearly damned Dream.

Dream phases through him, or at least through much of his right side, his hand passing directly though where Wilbur’s heart would be, if he still had one that beat. As it is, the nonexistent breath is punched from his lungs, his form twists and statics in distortion as behind him, Sam reaches forward on instinct to catch Dream as he stumbles and―

 _a burden a burden a dreadful burden the desire to build and to create sings in his soul and look look look how it has been twisted look how it has been ruined look at the masks he must wear look how he must be cruel to his friend because others have deigned that his once friend is deserving of this punishment and he does he does he does but he is the only one who watches the consequences he is the warden the guard the lookout and it is his job his duty his service and if he must be cruel so that the rest of the server can be kinder can recover then so be it here is a warden here is a builder here is someone trying to build a home for children who have none out of rubble here here here he is buried under walls he built here he is buried under a thousand masks here he is your friend take his burden take his weight take his hurt let him breathe breathe breathe so he can be kind again_ ―

This time, at least, Dream doesn’t immediately crumple to the floor. Instead, he simply sinks to his knees, deathly pale, shuddering, before he tips sideways into Puffy’s arms.

“You _idiot_ ,” Wilbur hisses, pulling himself together from the feeling of being literally walked through, hovering close to Dream as Puffy maneuvers him back into the bed with stricken eyes. “You absolute idiot, why would you do that, you can barely stand―”

“I won’t die,” Dream says, plaintively, as though the matter-of-fact tone won’t raise Wilbur’s hackles. Exhaustion is creeping back in as he sinks into the single pillow, offering no resistance as Wilbur pulls up the blanket to his chest.

“That’s not the point,” Wilbur says, before pressing the back of his palm to Dream’s forehead. He’s burning up, but it doesn’t seem to be that blazing fever that Wilbur remembers. Yet. “Get some rest, alright? And try not to sleep for a week straight this time.”

The ghost of a smile flickers across Dream’s face, before his eyes fall closed, and exhaustion drags him into an uneasy sleep.

“What...” Sam says, from the corner of the room, then stops, seemingly unable to say anything else.

“That,” Wilbur says, resigned, “was settling. And you better get used to it, because I have a feeling that he’s going to be doing it a lot, regardless of whether or not it’ll kill him.”

“He…” Sam searches for words to describe what just happened. “He took―”

“Your hurts,” Wilbur finishes. “Your pain, your fears, he can take them and… calm them. Now do you believe me?”

Sam nods wordlessly.

“Unless he tries to do that to the entire server, there’s no guarantee anyone else will believe us,” Puffy points out, and Wilbur smiles ruefully.

“Knowing him, he’ll try anyway.” Wilbur looks around, then turns to Puffy and asks, pointedly, “Where can we take him?”

“My house?” Puffy suggests, worrying her lip between her teeth. “It’s still close to the prison, and I’ve got fully stocked chests of healing items and pots, if we need them. And I, uh…” She hesitates, then admits quietly, “I don’t get a lot of visitors. Not anymore. If they need me, they come to the office.”

Wilbur waves away the strangeness of that statement, and nods. “Sounds good. Do you guys want to pick him up, or―”

Sam shakes his head. “Too suspicious. If someone saw us, it would give the whole game away. If he’s walking, we’ll be more likely to go unnoticed.”

“We wait until he wakes, then?” Puffy asks. Wilbur frowns, but he nods, in slow consideration.

“And until he wakes up, I’m staying,” Wilbur says, a challenge in his voice as he tilts his head up to Sam. The warden, still shaken from his settling, just sighs.

“Fine. Just… Just call me if you need me.”

He leaves, leaning heavily on his trident, and Wilbur cannot help a pang of… something; not quite sadness, not quite regret. But definitely something.

He’s expecting Puffy to stand too, but instead she sits, crossing her legs neatly next to Wilbur. She studies the boy on the bed, and Wilbur gets the uncomfortable feeling she’s studying him too.

“I’m glad this Dream has someone with him who cares, at least,” she says after a moment.

Wilbur's lips twist in a dry smile. “I’m not even one of those who loves Dream the most or has known him the longest. But I guess I’m all he’s got.”

“You’re not,” Puffy says, quietly. “I won’t turn him away again.”

They sit in silence for a moment longer, and Wilbur knows that Puffy is scrutinising him, just as she would when plotting a particularly difficult course, or navigating her ship though stormy seas.

“What is your world like?” Puffy asks.

Wilbur considers for a long moment, before finally settling on, “Kind.”

They don’t say anything else. They don’t need to.

(Across dimensions, a man wakes up and sees sunlight drifting through the windows. Around him are several variations of snoring.

The last thing he remembers is obsidian walls and the furnace-fire of magma. It doesn’t matter how he got here. All that matters is that he’s here, and the sun is gentle and warm on his skin. He is _free._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey - we said it was a swap; you didn't think c!dream would be out of the picture entirely, did you?
> 
> :)


	3. Sticks and Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, we love you. So here is your saturday angst!
> 
> Seriously, you guys are amazing, the responses from you guys have been incredible, and we can't express how much we appriciate it. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter! :)

“The early bird gets the worm” jokes are only funny if you haven’t heard them a thousand times before. They began with Phil’s habit of rising before the sun was even a thought on the horizon, and stayed because his children made a habit of running jokes into the ground. When you’ve raised as many kids as he has, you learn the value of a little peace and quiet before the pandemonium of breakfast.

As Phil scrubs the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, he recalls the previous night. They all, for some reason, decided that playing Scrabble would be a good idea for their game night… even with their last game resulting in an Incident with a capital “I” involving chickens, confetti, and Scrabble pieces permanently embedded in their wall decor. Techno, predictably, conquered the board with his obscure, hyper-specific vocabulary, Wilbur nonchalantly hoodwinking them with false words along the way. Tommy, as per usual, ended the game in a fit of frustration, flipping the board altogether as Tubbo cheered him on, as he has nearly every time they play board games. Honestly, Phil was just relieved to see his sons having fun together after so long. He knows the brothers missed lighthearted games like these just as much as he did, a semblance of normalcy after all the shit that went down last month. After forcing Tommy to clean up all the pieces, they’d settled down in a big pile in the middle of the room, Phil’s wings draped over them like an oversized blanket, reminiscent of a time in their lives where things were so much simpler.

As he moves to get up, Phil becomes aware of a minor problem. Tubbo is holding on to him, seemingly intent on never letting go. While Phil adores the boy, his wings had fallen asleep and he needs to move them before the numbness turns to the dreaded _pins-and-needles_. He gently gathers the sleeping child, careful not to jostle him too much, and extricates himself from the lovely pile of entangled limbs, regardless of how loath he is to leave it. He miraculously does so without waking him and glances around to his other sons.

He blinks. Then he blinks again. He rubs his palms against his eyes and wonders if he’s hallucinating.

Because it looks as if Wilbur is phased halfway through his left wing, Tommy’s arm reaching straight into his chest. He’s wearing a bright yellow sweater reminiscent of the one he wore in childhood, one that he definitely wasn’t wearing last night. Phil gradually becomes aware of a _chill_ creeping up his wing, liquid blue saturating parts of the sunny weave of yarn and staining his primaries.

“What the fuck.” A mumble of disbelief escapes his lips as he reaches out to his child, to dispel this strange, unsettling vision that isn’t real, _can’t be_ ―

It's the chill of the End, a melancholic smear of _blue,_ like hanging in the narrow void between life and not-death: the feeling of Phil’s hand passing right through his eldest son.

“Wilbur,” he says, hoarse and disbelieving. “ _Wilbur.”_

His son blinks open eyes that are devoid of all colour and smiles, seemingly unbothered by his sudden lack of physical form.

“Oh! Hey, Phil!” His voice echoes, like he’s calling to Phil from the maw of a cave, tattered at the edges, chipper. “You fixed your wings! That’s good, I missed them.”

For a moment, a frown flickers across Wilbur’s face, but it’s gone before either of them can examine it further.

“Wilbur,” Phil says, then the words choke in his throat and he’s unable to say anything else, staring in shock as the shadow of his son simply sits and smiles without a care in the world. Beside him, he can feel Technoblade stirring at the noise; he bumps Tommy with an elbow, and he grumbles, shifting Tubbo; and Phil won’t be able to weather the storm that is about to hit. He can barely understand it himself.

“Ghostbur,” Wilbur corrects brightly, patiently, like a parent to a child. “I’m Ghostbur, Phil, not Alivebur.”

“Alive…” Phil trails off as Tommy, rubbing sleep from his eyes, sits up, yawning, before letting out a startled yelp, but Phil continues anyway, “What _happened_ to you?”

“Don’t you remember?” Wilbur ― no, Ghostbur, and that’s all wrong, everything is wrong ― smiles blankly, eyes grey and cold and _dead_. “You did.”

* * *

Consciousness is incremental, sensation trickling into Dream’s limbs as his mind reconstructs himself, logic over feeling. The lack of the unbearable stench of steady-burning flesh is what jolts him first, his constant companion in the prison he’d pigeonholed himself into. Then comes the jarring unfamiliarity of his own skin, ridges of puckered scars he _knows_ are on his body smoothed over without a trace. He keeps his eyes closed, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, and carefully skims his thumbs over what he’s laying on.

Blankets. A comforter, more likely, over wood planks: constructed slapdash but sturdy. The sweet, faintly sickly scent of lily-of-the-valley. A house.

_A house?_

Alarm ― caution ― is what prompts Dream to open his eyes and take in his surroundings. He’s wholly unprepared to find himself fully bracketed by the two people he loved most and lost last.

Instinct, buried bone-deep, packed skin-to-skin with the abhorrence that rears its ugly head in his chest and the stirring rot of everything he’d methodically buried, blazes adrenaline ice-cold through his veins, and immediately he’s fully awake, his senses keener than his Nightmare. Its handle would be a comfort right about now, but all he’s got, it seems, are his two hands and the six or seven other people snoring away in the room with him, light spilling cleanly through the neat square panes onto the bright wooden floor. He almost hisses a curse, bites down on it so hard he tastes copper. _Control. Steady on._

Dream sits up inch by inch, ignoring the vocal protests of the phantom litany of burns and bruises pressed under his skin. Sapnap’s arm thrown over his waist, practically trapping him in, nearly gets another rise out of him, but a moment with closed eyes and a long exhale and the unnameable stir in his stomach is gone again. Upon closer examination, he doesn’t quite recognise Sapnap as his own: the last Dream saw him, there were thumbprints of shadows under his eyes, his hair shorn unevenly like the wake of a wave, a vicious scar on his jaw that Dream didn’t know the source of. All of that’s gone, now, as though Dream’s travelled back in time. Sapnap sleeps like the end of the world wouldn’t wake him, and his hair is half-unravelled from its twin buns, and what spans of his skin Dream can see under the sweatshirt are unmarred.

As though Dream’s travelled back in time.

He knows that’s not what this is. It can’t possibly be; time and space aren’t under XD’s jurisdiction (because surely _he’s_ why. A well of indescribable feelings, now, beneath Dream’s breastbone, caught under his tongue; insufferable, meddling, idiot god that he is ― all that power, and for _what)_. He doesn’t understand what this is, then, staring around at the people strewn about, tangled in blankets and pillows and what looks like a stuffed animal or two. George’s premature frown lines, the careful blankness of his face, has been erased in favour of the childlike (serene and uncalculating, smoothed over instead of sharpened like star-bright shards of glass) visage Dream can recall only after an effort. Eret’s in a sweater that swamps them and a skirt that tumbles past their ankles, painfully impractical in a way they’ve never been. It’s the first time in months Dream’s seen them wearing anything that doesn’t cling to them so they can don armour at the drop of a hat. Karl is snoring with his mouth gaping open, a far cry from the vague haunt of a man Dream knows the time traveller must have been. His head is on Quackity’s stomach, and ― Quackity looks _worlds_ different, the scar on his lip erased without a trace, lacking the lemon yellow wings Dream never saw in person, the raw edge to his every expression smoothed over by somnolent serenity. Dream does a physical double-take when he sees Callahan passed out with his brilliant horned head tipped back onto the sofa. He feels something visceral jitter in his core, a fundamental shudder, something Dream wrests back from the cliff it’s teetering on, refusing to look down at the stark black sharks below. Untouchable. Implacable.

A flood of gold through the curtains. Asterism shadows crisp on the sheets. George’s hand slack by his hip.

Dream knows what he has to do.

* * *

Sapnap’s eyes flutter open to a hand carding gently through his hair, sleep still humming honey-languid in his limbs. It’s not unusual nor unwelcome, and he’s about to mumble and turn into whoever’s side it is and press his face to their ribs when the hand stills.

“Sapnap?” murmurs an unfamiliar voice, and all the warm rumble in Sapnap’s chest snaps cold.

He freezes up, a bad habit that Bad and George and Quackity are all trying to pester him out of, and it probably tips off the stranger with their fucking hand on his head, so Sapnap swears and bolts up and rears back, nearly pushing Callahan over onto the floor. It’s been a hot fucking second since he’s had to play guard dog, but muscle memory has his fists pulled up to his chest, an offense and defense in one, when his eyes clock in who, exactly, is sitting before him, and his jaw drops.

“Dre―” he begins, then cuts himself off sharply. Bringing his fists back up with certainty, he demands, “Who the _hell_ are you?”

Because this person, with the same tumbling curls and the same constellation freckles and the same paper-pale mask with its chipper smile, isn’t Dream. It’s the way this person carries themself like a forethought, maybe, a hand tucked deliberately in the crook of their elbow, the dull slant to their mouth, or how magnetically repulsive Sapnap finds this intruder in the painfully familiar skin. Sapnap can feel bile rising in his throat and he doesn’t know _why_ but he knows that this person is ― this person is _wrong._

Neither of them move for a moment, eyes on one another. It makes Sapnap sick that on any other battlefield, any other lazy morning, this would be a triage. Instead, he can see the impostor’s eyes glint green as they flicker for a single second - sizing him up - and he forces himself not to recoil further when they say, voice softer, and yes, _now_ they sound everything like Dream, “What are you talking about? It’s just me.”

“Liar,” Sapnap says immediately, narrowing his eyes. “What did you do to Dream? Where is he?”

“I’m right here?” they ask, confused. Sapnap feels all the hairs on his arms rise; the stranger is an excellent actor, the lilt of their voice nearly an apples-to-apples match for his best friend’s, the bright chirp even in uncertainty, the razor-fine focus even in lighthearted banter. They’ve evenly weighted the hesitance and half-jesting air that makes them seem perfectly Dream, and even as Sapnap scowls at them there’s a whisper at the back of his mind that suggests he’s just overreacting, that it was just the dregs of a half-remembered nightmare, that this sanded-down puzzle piece is fitting in correctly and Sapnap is snapping at shadows.

Then the person’s shoulders shift infinitesimally, and Sapnap sucks in a sharp inhale in instinctive anticipation of a silvery whisper threading past him―

“Dude, are you good?” the person says carefully, and Sapnap feels something give.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he demands lowly, half an eye on their ― on _Sapnap’s_ friends still snoring around him. “Where’s Dream. Give him back, you fucker.”

The impostor tilts their head inquisitively, a birdlike motion that makes Sapnap snarl for how like Dream it is.

“Pandas?” they say gently.

And everything ― everything they’ve built up together, ten or twenty years of shaking one another out of childish nightmares, cutting each other’s hair when it got so long it was just a damn nuisance, Sapnap’s thumb round the curve of the mask as Dream whispered and Dream cried and Dream bled and bled and _bled―_

The only thing that keeps Sapnap from lunging at the thing wearing his best friend’s skin is an arm that shoots out and bodily restrains him.

“What’s going on,” says George slowly, his eyes darting from Sapnap to the impostor, his brow furrowed, his palm splayed flat against Sapnap’s chest. All the sleep has leached from his voice, the steel under his words flat and cold. Sharper, his eyes trained on the fake Dream. “Who are you.” It’s not a question, and it’s at times like this that Sapnap can’t help but think that George, more than he or Dream, has the capacity to withdraw from himself, eyes like chips of ice, carve himself out of his own warmth like a jack-o'-lantern. He can be frightening in a way that Sapnap or Dream won’t ever be.

 _Or maybe,_ thinks Sapnap with a detached sort of revulsion, as the depth to the stranger’s expression completely evaporates, _I’m lying to myself._

“Oh,” they say, their voice so utterly devoid of emotion that Sapnap can’t help but recoil, and George, too, leans away, his expression tightening. “I see how it is.” With that same fucking head tilt: “You don’t trust me, Georgie.”

 _“Don’t.”_ George’s shoulders hike up to his shoulders, a flicker of frostbite fury. “What’s going on? Sapnap?”

“I don’t fucking know,” he shoots back, shoving his arm under the sofa to grope for the handle of the Unbreaking diamond axe he knows George keeps down there for emergencies. “I woke up and they were― I don’t know if Dream is― where’s that _fucking_ axe―”

There is a commotion from outside, the distinctive sound of an outraged Tommy and then a windmill of arms and legs as said Tommy crashes into the room, rousing the rest of the group with a panicked bark of “Guys, it’s Wil, something’s wrong, he’s all see-through and shit, where’s Dream, we need him to―”

He pulls up short as he takes in the scene in front of him: Quackity and Karl groaning and rubbing their heads where they knocked them together, startled; Callahan up and alert, not looking unlike a startled deer. Eret falls off their chair, landing solidly on the floor with a pained _‘oof.’_

And Sapnap, axe now in hand, facing down whatever it is that has taken the form of his best friend with his other best friend at his side, a firm hand on his arm.

“What the _fuck_ is going on in here?” Tommy demands, dumbfounded. Sapnap ignores him in favour of returning to glaring at the stranger in front of him.

“That’s not Dream,” he announces at large, and hopes that his voice isn’t shaking as much as he thinks it is.

“ _What?”_ Quackity blurts, even as Sapnap sees Karl reaching for him in his peripheral vision.

“Sapnap,” the stranger starts, in that same flat voice, but Sapnap moves forward, axe up and pointed outward, even as all his limbs scream at him for daring to threaten what looks so desperately like Dream, snarls, “ _Don’t_. Don’t say a single fucking word unless it’s to tell us who the fuck you really are.”

The Not-Dream’s blank expression does not change; no emotion stirs in their eyes. “I’m Dream.”

“The _fuck_ ,” Tommy repeats more insistently. “We don’t have time for this. Wilbur is fucking _see-through,_ dickhead, now you’re saying this isn’t Dream?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up and he was―” Sapnap grits his teeth, hard enough for the creak of his jaw to echo in the sun-spilt room. “Where’s Dream, you _fuck_.”

“Sapnap, I don’t know if this is the best idea―” Eret starts, a hand up, ready to step in as a mediator, but George interrupts him with a blunt, “Something’s wrong, we need to figure out what.”

Karl, who’s stayed silent, his hand staying pressed to his forehead, pipes up, his eyes wide as he takes in the ― the Not-Dream. “It’s just Dream! Come on, guys, look at him, it’s _Dream_ ―”

And suddenly there are several voices all talking on top of each other, arguing and rising in discordant chorus. A movement in the corner of his eye makes Sapnap whirl around with the axe at the ready, but it’s just the impostor tugging down the mask as if by reflex, the smiley face obscuring not only the usual sliver of Sapnap’s Dream’s face but instead covering all of it, even down to the freckles that dot his jaw. Sapnap doesn’t even have to look at their face to know that their expression hasn’t shifted even an inch out of its pristine placidity, and it makes his skin crawl; his Dream couldn’t be more expressive if he tried, waves his arms in wild gesticulations because he knows his moods can be hard to read with his barely-visible eyes, is tactile to a fault, has a gaze that sparkles with impish glee and a mouth that runs faster than his brain. Sapnap could never mistake this weak facsimile for the boy he grew up alongside.

A hand on his arm; not Karl, as he expected, but Callahan.

 _Settling_ , he signs, mouth set. _Ask him to settle_.

“Reach out,” he snaps, turning his attention to the stranger in front of him again, who is watching him still with eyes that examine them like a mechanic might look at a rusty car, identifying what pieces they’re going to salvage from the wreckage. “Show us that you’re our Dream. Reach out.”

“Not when you’re pointing an axe at me,” the impostor replies, point-blank, leaning back on their heels in a languid motion that reminds Sapnap more of a coiled viper. “I don’t want to lose a hand.”

“Without moving,” George adds, and Sapnap has never been more grateful for his support as, for a tenth of a second, this other Dream stills even further, a complete suspension of motion, an infinitesimal snippet of body language that Sapnap knows instinctively means they’re taken aback, no matter how little, and is trying to hide it.

So similar to his Dream, and yet so different; looks the same and able to emulate the same soft tone, the same gentleness Sapnap remembers, and yet, stands apart from them, deliberate, practiced motions that Sapnap rarely sees outside of Championships. They might have been combing through Sapnap’s hair when he awoke, but they had frozen, like they were no longer used to touch.

Sapnap can’t imagine a time where he doesn’t jump into his best friend's arms, doesn’t curl up next to him at a sleepover, allow him to guard his back in a way that no one else does.

He stands, with an axe to his brother’s throat, and waits. The silence, even with Tommy’s anxious fidgeting, is deafening. Finally, sounding as though they’re spitting it out through gritted teeth, annoyance in every syllable, as if giving them an inch means they’ve surrendered their whole damn hand, “What do you mean, reaching out?”

A pause, as the whole room, it seems, takes a moment to process exactly what was said.

George, of all people, moves first, before the entire room erupts into chaos. “Keep them here, away from anybody else. I don’t want them going anywhere until we figure out exactly what the hell is going on, or where Dream is.”

“But Wilbur,” Tommy starts, but Quackity and Eret have already stood, ready to go, with Eret placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, we’ll figure this out, we’ll leave these guys to it. If anyone can find Dream, they can,” they reassure, gently herding Tommy and Quackity from the room. Karl follows, but not before he catches Sapnap’s eye.

Sapnap knows how to be determined, and so he schools his expression and speaks, firmly. “Let the others know what's going on.”

Karl nods in response, but he still shoots Sapnap a concerned look before he departs, and Sapnap’s heart aches in his chest. Neither of them acknowledges that _they_ don’t even know what’s going on.

Flanked by George and Callahan, Sapnap turns his attention right back to the impostor in front of him. Their posture hasn’t changed, instead watching them all like a predator watches prey. It’s such a dissonant expression to see on what little is visible of Dream’s face; even in manhunts, even in Championships, he has never seen a look of such cold, calculated judgement.

“No more lying,” he says. “Tell us exactly who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

“I wasn’t lying.” The impostor’s voice is dropping under the horizon, sinking lower, cautious in a distantly barbed way. “I’m Dream.”

“Bullshit,” George mutters.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” they say evenly. “It’s true. But I really, honestly have no idea how I got here. I don’t even know where here is, or _when_ ,” here, they snort, a response to a joke none of them know, “but I know you’re not my Sapnap, or my George. I haven’t even seen Callahan in months. You’re all far too…” they linger over the word, the cadence of their voice suddenly odd, “ _attached_ to be mine.”

“Spit it out,” Sapnap says, rolling his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Just as dense as ever. Nice to know some things never change,” Not-Dream says, the sharp edge of cruelty cutting through his words. “This isn’t my world. _Clearly_.”

 _That doesn’t make any sense,_ Callahan signs, and even from under the mask, Sapnap knows that this Dream has rolled his eyes.

“Dimension, universe, whatever.”

“Where is our Dream?” Sapnap demands. The arm on the raised axe is beginning to ache, but he refuses to lower it.

“Exactly where I was,” Not-Dream says, with yet another cruel twist to his words, like there is a secret he knows and they don’t. “And before you ask, no, I haven’t got any idea about how to get us back.”

“ _Us?”_ George asks, and there is a wicked smile spreading across the small part of Dream’s face that he can see.

“Gods, weren’t any of you listening? Wilbur’s a _ghost_. Seeing as that doesn’t sound like a normal thing for you, it seems I’m not the only one who isn’t where they’re supposed to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here are our writers/editors who have socials please go check them out!
> 
> Chrys - [tumblr](https://chrysalizzm.tumblr.com/) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/chrysalizzm?lang=en-gb)  
> Subwalls - [tumblr](https://subwalls.tumblr.com/)  
> Hawk - [twitter](https://twitter.com/hawksirius2019)  
> MJ - [tumblr](https://marianne-dash-wood.tumblr.com/) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/MJDashwood)  
> K (who made our wonderful art!) - [tumblr](https://kinaku-mirai.tumblr.com/) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/kinaku_mirai)  
> Ophelia - [tumblr](https://spaceeecactus.tumblr.com/)


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